G'day gronk,
How are ya mate?
Unfortunately the river was the main mode of transport to move timber, cattle, dairy produce, potatoes and other commodities that the Valley relied on for it's commerce and trade, so settlement began on the river bank. So the solution was to put levee walls around the towns that grow with the most populations.
I fully understand where you are coming from mate, but it would be impossible to move these towns away from the devastating effects of what this mighty river can do.
I am of the belief as others are as well that we still have not seen the biggest flood that the Clarence has produced.
There are a couple of reasons behind this thinking.
We were lucky that the country has been so dry in the previous 12 months leading up to this event, the water had low laying areas to run into( It the video, were the water is rushing over the road near the Lawrence Shop, the sign pointing towards the Ferry & Maclean, the water usually crosses the road from right to left, the water is rushing to fill a huge dry swamp that is many many square kilometers on size), BOM, The Dept of Meteorology have just acknowledged this, Not just for the Clarence, but the whole eastern seaboard.
All but one of the tributaries reached record heights, Below Grafton, huge swamps were dry as a bone, the water didn't back up as it was funneled through and under the Grafton bridge. Although many people in Grafton choose to ignore this, it is what happened, Their levee wall which they all(17 000 people)/ sit all behind came within 4" of topping, in fact some places down stream from the bridge the river did topple the wall.
Maclean and villages down river were very lucky as well not to feel the effects of all this water that had somewhere to flow into, If these low areas were full of water from local rain(which has been the case in past floods)I believe the flood would of been of Biblical proportions.
I believe we dodged a bullet yet again this flood.
Hey Fuji,
Ya always welcome to drop in
I reckon with Mark's footage from down river as well as the aerial photos of the Clarence give an awesome view of how much water our mighty river can push.
It's not mentioned much these days in promoting the Clarence area, but signs on the Highway to the north and south of the Clarence use to read.
Welcome to the Clarence, "Big River Country"
Below is a pic of how close it came to topping the levee at one section of the wall in Grafton.
